Clipped From The Salt Lake Tribune

Monday Morning- Victim of 1933 Kidnaping Ends Her Life Mary McElroy Leaves Plea For Abductors Found Dead KANSAS CITY, Jan. 21 Miss Mary McElroy, 32, victim of one of the major kidnapings of the early thirties, shot and killed herself Sunday at her home. In a note, the slender, brunet daughter of the late H. F. McElroy, ousted as city manager last spring, said: "My four kidnapers are probably the only people on earth who don't consider me an utter fool." For several years she had taken an "interest in the well being" of her kidnapers, two of whom are in state prison. Another has served his sentence, and the fourth never was captured. Miss McElroy's body, clad in gray lounging pajamas and lying on a divan of the sun room, was found Sunday morning by her maid, Miss Inez Strange. There was a bullet wound slightly above the right ear. On the floor was a .25- caliber automatic pistol, identified as Miss McElroy's. Pleads for Kidnapers The note, written in ink and signed "Mary M. McElroy," was addressed to no one. Its second paragraph, as released by police, said: "You have your death penalty now—so—p lease — give them a chnnce." Her death was the tragic end of Keren harrowing years, beginning with her kidnaping in 1933. Then followed the trial of three of her four abductors; her successful appeal to the governor to commute the death sentence of one of them; the ousting of her father as city manager in the breakdown of the Pendergast machine last spring, and finally her father's death last Bummer. Both the maid and H. F. McElroy Jr., her brother told police she had appeared in good spirits Saturday. Father Paid Ransom Miss McElroy was kidnaped from her bath May 27, 1933, chained to the basement wall of a farmhouse near Shawnec, Kan., and released after being held prisoner 29 hours. Her father paid 530,000 ransom. Two of the three kidnapers apprehended were Walter and George McGee, brothers, now serving life sentences. •Walter McGee was given a death sentence, but it was commuted to life by Guy B. Park, then governor. Miss McElroy made a personal appeal for commutation zifter other legal avenues of saving McGee from the gallows had been closed. During Walter McGee's trial Miss McElroy's father was asked by a defense attorney: "But your daughter was not harmed?" "Yes," McElroy replied, "my daughter has been injuied—to the extent that I fear she never will get over it." Clarence Click, who lived on the farm where she was held prisoner, was released in 1938 on conditional commutation after serving seven and a half years of an eight-year sentence. Asked about a report that FBI ngents had questioned Miss McElroy recently about the kidnaping, f <f Dwight Brantley, head of the Kansas City office, said he had "no comment." Since the kidnaping Miss McElroy had suffered several nervous breakdowns. MIss Mary McElroy , nnaddressed note. Leaves Kidnapers in Prison Mourn Death JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., Jan. 21 (^—TWO brothers, kidnapers of Mary McElroy, serving life terms in the state penitentiary, Sunday night mourned the suicide of their ono-time victim. They are Walter McGee, now 34, who abducted the late Kansas City manager's daughter from her home and held her for ransom, and George Mc(Jee, now 29. Their lips quivered when they spoke of Miss McElroy as "the best friend we ever had." Walter, saved from death on the gallows by Miss McElroy's plea to Governor Guy B. Park, said: "I wouldn't have felt the loss of my own sister more. I can't believe it.'" Politics Riddle Looms at U.M.W. Parley Senator Wheeler's Bid Seen as Straw in Wind (Continued From Page One) Roosevelt's reelection by pledging its unanimous support, a pledge implemented by gifts and loans of more than $500,000 to the Democratic national committee. Situation Changed But much water has gone over the dam and there has been abundant evidence that Lewis and the president are not .as close as they were four years ago. For one thing their relations were complicated by the 1937 strike in "little" steel which led Mr. Roosevelt to remark, "a plague on both your houses." Lewis rejoined bitterly that "it ill behooves one who has supped at labor's table and who has been sheltered in labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor and its adversaries when they became locked in deadly embrace." The breach has widened perceptibly, due chiefly to failure of the CIO and its rival, the American Federation of Labor, to settle their war. As politics is only one segment of debatable issues which will come before the miners as they celebrate their golden jubilee anniversary, local unions have submitted 1800 resolutions for consideration. Opens Tuesday The convention opens Tuesday, just 50 years from the day that 88 representatives of the National Progressive Union, 103 members of the National Trades Assembly and 135 Knights of Labor delegates met here to form the United Mine Workers. Union officials say these contrasts exist today with the organization formed 50 years ago: Membership: 20,000 members in 216 local unions in 1890; more than 600,000 members in 4000 active ocal unions in 1940. Wages: Less than $2 per day In 890. Now 56 minimum in northern ields and $5.60 in the south. Hours of work: Ten to 14 hours per day in 1890. In 1940, a stand- irri 7-hour day, 35-hour week, in both bituminous and anthracite ields. Recognition: In 1890, the union dealt with some coal companies, but by no means all of them, only on the basis of its 20,000 members. Today, it has a union-shop con- ract covering all anthracite and virtually all bituminous mines. Driver Injures, Moves, Abandons Cripple SEATTLE, Jan. 21 (J&— An unidentified motorist struck down a crippled, 71-year-old woman here Sunday, loaded her, unconscious, into his automobile and six blocks away dumped her out into a puddle of water in an alley where she was found some time later. She was not expected to live. The woman, Mrs. Edith Oakes,

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